On Sun, Mar 27, 2005 at 06:54:52PM -0500, Steven Rostedt wrote:> On Mon, 2005-03-28 at 00:01 +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote:> > > > How do you define "proven in court"?> > > > Decided by an US judge based on US laws?> > Decided by a German judge based on German laws?> > Decided by a Chinese judge based on Chinese laws?> > ...> > > > OK, I was talking about US courts since that case was done in the US.> But this is all what I remember about reading some 10 years ago. So I> could be all wrong about what happened. I don't have any references and> I'm too busy now to look them up. So I may be just speaking out of my> ass. :-)> > > If you distribute software you can be sued in every country you > > distribute it.> > > > E.g. Harald Welte is currently quite successful with legal actions in > > Germany against companies that distribute Linux-based routers in Germany > > without offering the source of the GPL'ed software they use.> > Your talking about something completely different. Yes, it is quite> explicit if you modify the source, and distribute it in binary only> form. I'm talking about writing a separate module that links with the> GPL code dynamically. So that the code is compiled different from the> GPL code. So the only common part is the API. Now is this a derived> work? >...

My point was a bit different:

Harald's action was meant as an example, that such things can be brought to court in virtually every country in the world.

And a court decision in e.g. the USA might not have any influence on a court decision in e.g. Germany.

Some people seem to think that it was enough if something was OK according to US law - but that's simply wrong.

> -- Steve

cuAdrian

--

"Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days. "Only a promise," Lao Er said. Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed